Land Use & Responsible Development

Let land owners use there own land. City and County do not help us or care about North Shore. They are so corrupt they getting indicted by the FBI.

If the ag land owners can not use the land owned in title to both farm and live then the land should be given back to large corporations. This is the only way we can get the land into the hands of Hawaii's citizens out out of the hand of major corporations and developers. Set limits on developers and regulate the big money. Please let us small ranchers live in peace and live on the aina legally. Give us a legal means to do what we are doing. Just look at all the unenforced illegal farming shanties that do very little for the North Shore Ag Economy.

We are farmers and land owners. Your plan is a infringement on commerce. We cannot be profitable with more regulation. Our investments in the community will be lost if we are not able to be free to utilize our land as needed. For example, if we are not able to live on our farm... We must carry a rental or home mortgage and carry the burden of land leases and investment. To be a farmer here in Hawaii is so expensive because of these cost. Living and farming is a normal situation throughout the world. If we cannot live on our farm land we will be forced to lease to illegal immigrants much like most of the lower Dole lands. We farm with sustainable resources and organic (more expense). Foreign farmers produce for max profit which leads to significant environment waste from Chemicals.

In order to keep small family farms afloat, most need to diversify and take advantage of one of our biggest resources on the north shore - tourism. Including some forms of agri-tourism as income alongside the sale of produce can generate the income we need to keep growing food for local consumption and selling it at reasonable prices. Farm tours and farm stays are two forms of agri-tourism we'd like to employ, but farm stays are currently grouped with illegal short term vacation rentals, and thus not allowed. I'd like to propose that legitimate small family farms be allowed to host farm stays under regulation. In order to qualify to host a farm stay, farms should have to prove their legitimacy, pay appropriate taxes and obtain appropriate permits. There definitely needs to be regulation to avoid non-farmers with luxury houses on ag lands taking advantage of this, but it's not appropriate to completely ban this type of agri-tourism as it can be a useful path towards diversification for small family farms.